300: March to Glory

Posted: 03/26/07

Admit it. When you saw the trailers for 300, your first thought was “this would make a kick-ass video game!” And seriously, how could 300 not make a great game? It has mythical beasts, epic battles; and buckets of blood and gore--all excellent prerequisites for an impressive game. How could things get screwed up? You’re about to find out.

The game centers on the story of King Leonidas of Sparta. Faced with invasion and slavery at the hands of Xerxes and his massive Persian empire, Leonidas gathers 300 of his best warriors to drive back the advancing hordes.

While the film focuses almost solely on the various stages of that battle, the game, thankfully, branches out a bit more. Here you’ll find fleshed-out segments that are nothing more than a few moments of plot development during the movie. While the game features no movie footage outside of the official trailer in the bonus section, the story bits are still engaging. Done in a gorgeous, graphic novel style, the cinematics are done quite well. Even the voice acting is decent, for the most part. In the story department, 300 gets things right. It’s just the rest of the game that needs work.

There’s only one thing you can do in 300, and that’s play through 300. This is a straight-forward action game. You won’t find any minigames or extraneous modes here.

Once you’ve completed a level, you are able to return there to play through it again, should you so desire. Since Leonidas gains different abilities as he cleaves more and more of his enemies, you may actually find that you want to return to specific challenges and try them again with a powered-up Spartan warrior.

Where this game is a brawler at heart, it’s more than a little disappointing that there’s no sort of wireless multiplayer on tap here. Other PSP brawlers have done it and done it well. Like the recent Warriors game, for example. And considering 300 is a bit one-dimensional in the gameplay department, a multiplayer option would be a fantastic way to add a bit of replay value.

The story may be based on the film, but the gameplay is definitely modeled after Sony’s God of War series. Leonidas may not have two swords and bit of chain, but he does have a very similar, combo-based fighting system.

The game provides you with two weapons--a sword and a spear. They technically have different uses, though you’ll find the sword is best for all but some very particular situations; mostly those where you have to destroy an enemy’s shield or hurl your weapon at attackers from a distance. Using Leonidas’ shield as both a blunt and throwing weapon rounds out his arsenal, plus you can use points earned to buy better versions of the three implements.

The combo system seems like it should be very deep when the game starts, but you’ll find it’s actually quite limited. As levels wear on and on, the same tactics must be used over and over again. It never comes anywhere close to being as engaging as God of War. In fact, it’s downright boring most of the time.

And those 300 companions of yours? Well, they should have renamed the game “2.” Generally only one of them will accompany his King into battle. In fact, the game completely fails to recreate the feel of the epic fights in the flick. There are never more than about five or six people or animals on-screen at one time.

The lone exception is The Phalanx. In certain levels, you’ll be tasked with moving your army, in Phalanx formation, forward to one main goal. If your enemies push, you push back. If they attack, you counterattack, all while shuffling forward and what can only be described as a very slow walk.

The problem is that, in order to maintain formation, your troops have to kill soldiers so they can refill the slowly draining formation bar at the top of the screen. If the bar depletes completely, everyone in your formation dies. Not due to an attack or anything. They literally just fall over dead.

Variety is nice, but when it borders on the absurd, it’s just stupid. And overall, the gameplay in 300 fails to do service to the movie or the genre at large.

300 successfully takes a great idea and incredible source material and boils it down to one disappointing PSP brawler. One can only wonder why a console version of this game was never created where the technology would do the flick justice, but all we have is this uninspired movie spin-off that falls flat on just about every front.

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